POLITICS AND WAR ALARMS.

Evening Star, Issue 23273, 23 May 1939, Page 2

POLITICS AND WAR ALARMS.

TO TUB EDITOR Sir. —' National Catastrophe,' ' Fruits of Labour's Misrule,' ' Desperate Expedients to Save (lie Situation,' ' Funds Dissipated and Squandered,' ' Opposition Leader Hits Out.' These are the words appearing at the head of a column iu your esteemed paper on the evening of February -I. And in your issue of Saturday. May 20, appears the following:—' Hard Pushed,' ' Mr Hamilton on Labour Finance,' ' Decline of National Production,' ' Appeal Now to ■'' Bloated Capitalists." '. And then follows about three-quarters of a column of an article supposedly coming from Mr Adam Hamilton. How depressing! How calamitous! But how impressive! The managers of New Zealand have, according to this long harangue, made ii terrible mess of things. Again wo say, " How appalling!" The Labour Government lias been in office for a little over three years, and succeeded that wonderful party headed by Messrs Ooatcs. Forbes. Haimltou, and company. Mr Hamilton states that when his party went out of office it left a legacy of forty milions sterling funds in London and various Government departments in credit. "How impressive!" He merely overlooked the fact that he also left about 70,000 honest and decent New Zealand people unemployed and half-famished in a land of plenty and infinite resources. Possibly it was merely an oversight that he did not mention that the country was full of old clothes depots and that sugar bag parades were the order of the day. But, of course, he does not need to remind tho people of those wonderful institutions. They are indelibly fixed in tho memory of thousands of our people, who, on October 15, 1938, at the various ballot boxes said " never again." The greatest blessing ever bestowed upon the people of our Dominion occurred on October 15, 1938, when the electors settled, we hope, for all time, the question of whether our Dominion is to bo ruled by the representatives of the people or by a handful of men who seem to be obsessed with the fetish of " rugged individualism " and '' private enterprise." What have private enterprise and rugged individualism given to the world up to the present date? There are millions of people, the forlorn, the forsaken, widows and orphans that go to bed hungry every night, i.nd this occurs iu every nation, including tho boasted " Christian nations which have private enterprise and rugged individualism as their system. And these nations cannot find out what is the matter with the world. It has been left to the working people of .New Zealand to point the way out of the economic labyrinth in which we floundered when the representatives of private enterprise and rugged individualism held the reins of Government. I, and possibly thousands of others, who read Mr Hamilton's diatribe in your esteemed, paper, I feel sure, would exclaim with one voice " God bless Mr Savage and the New Zealand Labour Government."

“Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” That was the prayer we learned in our young days, and it still holds. But it is the call of the hour. Service for others has been demonstrated to bring the greatest happiness in the world. Please note that we, and our Nationalist friends included, are dealing with a new world, a shaken, impoverished, exhausted, torn, embittered, suffering, and sorrowing world, smitten down by selfishness, greed, and injustice. To help up the world’s wounds, to cure this sickness, to have a part in placing hope for despair in human hearts, to help lift some of the burdens off the backs of the poor, the forlorn and forsaken, the widow and the orphan, to help wipe away the tears, so that happiness may have some place in their lives, to see happiness reflected in their faces, is the only reward that Mr Savage and his stalwart band of Nature’s gentlemen look for. If it were not that Mr Hamilton s articles will be read by many thousands of New Zealand people, the extravagant expressions used would be quite amusing, but when one sees in cold print such expressions as ‘ Day of Beckoning,’ ‘lntensified Crisis,’ ‘ Strangling Production,’ ‘ Export Income Falling,’ it is quite time that objection was raised. One would think that the country was in a terrible mess. Mr Hamilton is too late. We already know what the world’s managers hiave done in the way of making a mess of things, and bills due are now being presented. For the twentieth time we have celebrated Armistice Day, yet never has a deeper sense of fear and nnertainty settled upon the people. And for what reason? This question should galvanise every worker into quick and lively thought. Have the lessons of the inferno of 1914-18 been so poorly learned that the workers can afford to sit back snugly whilst private enterprise and rugged individualism are working overtime lor their destruction ? Can trade unionists and all other working men and women not see how behind the present war imbecility stands one ghoulish, damning factor, the armaments trust, known to European unionists as “ The Bloody International,” which, like Mammon, its god. knows no country, no king, no empire, no sense of loyalty to anything but its own greedy interests. Why? one asks, should the workers of the nations, at the command of brainless egotists, fly at each others throats? They have no quarrel to settle. Why then support this diabolical mass-murdering business in the interests of shareholders, among whom are peers, prelates, and politicians. When the League of Nations Commission functioned it disclosed facts, namely: 1. Armament firms have fomented war scares; (2) bribed Government officials; (fl) spread false reports re military forces in other countries to stimulate defence expenditure in their own; (4) inflamed public opinion through a mcrceitarv Press. Yet, despite this finding. these fomenters of ticklish conflict are allowed to push their infamous trade as freely as ever. English armaments are made, sold and delivered to every potential enemy of Britain. Thousands of English, Australian, and New Zealand soldiers fell in 1914-18 by bullets made bv British firms. Good old private enterprise and rugged individualism! Other countries, of, course do the same. It is quite common (knowledge that what has taken place in the matter of guns and munitions is now taking place in the matter of poison gas and germs with which to massacre the people. The British Home Office is scouring London in search of shelters in the event of air raids and against poison gases, many possibly made in our own factories and sold to our enemies at a profit. To talk of outlawing gas, germs etc. is pure idiocy. The thing is for the workers of the world to outlaw the ghoulish monsters who for profit make them. No city_ can actually be protected against air attacks. In the re. (•cut defence of Loudon air manoeuvres out of a total of 260 aeroplanes engaged only 16 were discovered by

searchlights, and this when London was prepared for the emergency. What would happen if a hostile fleet of 250 planes attacked the great city, even though 50 were brought down and 200 remained in the air to rain down hell? Air W. At. Hughes, of Australia, tells us that Sydney could be reduced to ashes in a night, and advises the people to get on their defensive nightcaps. What awful humbug and piffie! Professor Fdison once said: “There is in existence no means of preventing an aeroplane flotilla flying over London and spreading over the millions of . Londoners a gas which would asphyxiate those millions in a relatively short time. From 20 to 50 aeroplanes would be sufficient. With the aid of Lewisite, the most deadly arsenical poison yet- produced, London’s population could lie choked to death in three hours.” Can hell produce a worse devilry than this? Aleauwhile, Governments are content to fiddle with gas masks and shelters for the people to escape poisons, gases, germs, and some made by their own shrieking patriots but used by enemies. And will tho working people of England stand by and do nothing? And that whilst hundreds of thousands of English men, women, and children go hungry and in rags ?

This iniquity is too black to last. The stuffing must be knocked out of this war idiocy. It can be done at the ballot box. Failing that, the only alternative is civil war or revolutions. They told us the last war was a war to end war. What piffle! They lent Germany money to rearm, and get ready for another war. The workers of the world must follow the example of New Zealand by returning Labour Governments at the earliest possible moment in spite of Mr Hamilton's doleful wailiijg. The people of New South Wales have an anti-Labour Government, and according to Australian papers to hand one reads the following headlines: — " Two hundred thousand Australians on starvation diet." " Scandal-of the dole." " Minimum wage food allowance." " Organised starvation of the poor by Australian Governments promises to leave on political records of this generation the darkest stain on the Commonwealth's history." Do the workers of New Zealand want to have a Government that might treat them like this, or do they wish to continue under the most humane and competent Government the world has ever seen? The overwhelming vote that Labour got on October 15, 1938, is the answer. Mr Hamilton must try some other course.—l am, etc., Anti-Jingo. May 22.